When using organic materials in the construction of various types of electric devices, e.g., deformable mirror light valves, it is often necessary to lower the bulk resistivity, i.e., increase the conductivity, of the solid organic materials. Conventional techniques for lowering the resistivity of organic materials include the addition of a material such as carbon black, organo-metallic salts or neutral compounds. Use of these materials often has a deleterious effect on desired physical, electrical, and optical properties of the recipient organic materials. For example, adding finely divided conductive particles to silicone rubber results in a catastrophic decrease in the resistivity of the silicone rubber with increasing particle concentrations. This catastrophic decrease renders the silicone rubber unsuitable for any purpose where the resistivity must be selectively decreased.
Deformable mirror light valves are well known devices capable of amplifying the light intensity of an optically projected image, e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 2,896,507 entitled, "Arrangement for Amplifying the Light Intensity of an Optically Projected Image," which issued July 28, 1959. Generally, the devices are layered structures including, sequentially, a transparent conductor layer, a photoconductor layer, an elastomer layer, a thin flexible layer of conductive metal and a means for applying a voltage across the transparent conductor layer and the flexible layer of conductive metal.
Silicone rubber is often chosen for the elastomer layer in the deformable mirror light valve. However, the high resistivity of silicone rubber, generally about 10.sup.14 ohm-cm to 10.sup.15 ohm-cm, has the disadvantage that real time operation of the deformable mirror light valve under a constant DC bias voltage is not feasible. In order to overcome this disadvantage, a silicone rubber having a resistivity in the range of from about 10.sup.14 ohm-cm to 10.sup.9 ohm-cm would be desirable.
In preparing an electro-optic device, the liquid crystal compounds should be rigorously purified to remove ionic and nonionic impurities which may react to degrade the liquid crystal compounds, such as by decomposition, and the like. For commercially acceptable liquid crystal cells, the liquid crystal compounds should be purified to a resistivity of at least 1.times. 10.sup.11 ohm-cm. The dielectric relaxation frequency of a liquid crystal material is related to the resistivity thereof and determines the switching rate. A high dielectric relaxation frequency is desirable for certain applications, e.g., dynamic scattering displays, which require rapid decay time. It would be desirable to dope the liquid crystal with a non-deleterious material to reduce the resistivity to a suitable value, such as below 10.sup.10 ohm-cm.